Category Archives: comics

March Events wrap-up

It’s almost the end of the first quarter of the year and it’s been a pretty busy one for me! If January and February were the plan-comics and make-comics months, March was the month of get-out-there-and-show-comics…and strangely enough, it all did sort of come together in a make-comic order.

Here’s a quick wrap-up of my March 2014 –

Event 1. The Zine Lounge, the Museum

The MoAD Zine Lounge. Photo by and © Callan O'Donohoe 2014. Unfortunately edited by SpAE
The MoAD Zine Lounge. Photo by and © Callan O’Donohoe 2014, “helped” by SpAE

The Museum of Democracy recently converted a room to a Zine Lounge, and wanted to show it off with some artists in residence, as part of the ENLIGHTEN festival in Canberra. I was lucky enough to be one of those artists, and Nic Lawson and I spent a few hours making comics and talking to people about comics and zines. I got most of the ground work for my submission to the new ACT Comic Meet anthology, Exposure done over the course of the night too 🙂 Double victory!

2. The CZE Vending Machine Launch

I had a zine in the Canberra Zine Emporium Vending Machine, which launched in mid-March. I finally saw Boldly Sweetie off into the world – and I even gave a little speech to see her go. Had to give. That part was a bit of a surprise, but I think I’m getting better at public speaking!

Here’s more information on the Vending Machine, with a neat little video that includes Boldly Sweetie.

3. Canberra Zine Fair 2014

And finally to market, to market…

My table at the Canberra Zine Fair 2014
My table at the Canberra Zine Fair 2014

I realised how much of a busy year it had been when I counted FOUR never-taken-to-market-before new books on my half of the table, including YES | NO and Boldly Sweetie.

My event review is, in brief, up here. I spent most of my day behind a table and didn’t really get up to look around, which is a shame – there were a lot of beautiful and very professional looking books for display this year! It was a good day and free entry is always a massive bonus – particularly when combined with a decent turnout.

All of my new books will be up on the shop soon – in fact, you can already get a digital copy of Sweet NV 2 here!

 

And now that the madness of March is over, it’s back to making comics for me.

Upcoming market and a stack of new books

I’ll be at the Canberra Zine Fair this Sunday, with a few new print books for sale!

1. SWEET NV2 (The print version)

The cover for Sweet NV, issue 2!
The cover for Sweet NV, issue 2!

Oh it was an effort printing this, I will not lie. My printer is a bit of a demon bastard and ate through a whole stack of beautiful paper. HOWEVER, I do have some copies of NV2 – and it is a beautiful little B6 book with thin pages. I have a terrible weakness for books with thin pages.

For those who can’t make it, I will be posting the NV2 stock on my online store afterward. 🙂  Alternatively, get the pay-what-you-want digital version for as little as $0 here!

2. YES | NO

YES | NO - a zine project celebrating consent
YES | NO – a zine project celebrating consent

This is a wonderful little artbook-zine that I co-edited. Have I mentioned how proud I am of it yet? Because I’m crazy proud of it. We received TWO beautiful two page spreads that were too amazing not to be centrefolds…so we made two books 😀

All donations will be going to the Domestic Violence Crisis Service ACT.

3. Boldly, Sweetie

Cover for Boldly, Sweetie
Cover for Boldly, Sweetie

While not strictly new per se (it was launched with the Zine Vending Machine! <3), this will be its con/market debut. Hooray! It’ll be in the vending machine and on my half-table – so where you buy it from depends on how secretive you want to be about getting it! 😀

4. Feelgood

Yes, that's a different name on the cover

The secret book. Anyway, it’ll be on display.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Boundaries (the YES | NO comic), due 19 March

BOUNDARIES - cover conceptHi everyone,

The most excellent Emma and I are putting together a last minute minicomic/zine in response to a poorly named upcoming independent press fair. We love independent press and local art markets, and we don’t want horrible sexual assault endorsing themes infecting our art.

This is a supremely last minute idea and we are setting a hard deadline for all print submissions of Wednesday March 19. We’re looking for one page submissions of pinups and short (even one panel!) comics.

If you’d like to participate but can’t make that deadline then please don’t feel disheartened, as we’re going to collect all submissions received after that date into a digital version!

Please follow this link to find out more!

EVENT: Zine Vending Machine Launch

So I was a Saturday night Artist in Residence for the Museum of Australian Democracy’s Zine Lounge event at Enlighten 2014 (whew!)

It was a lot of fun, and I even got the story for my submission to the next ACT Comic Meet anthology done! (And then redrafted, various times, but the point is I got the basic thing done at the Zine Lounge)

Tomorrow I’ll be at the Canberra Zine Vending Machine launch, where Boldly Sweetie will be launched too! Hopefully I’ll see you there.

 

** PS – the other national cultural institutions on whose walls I’ve drawn is the National Gallery of Victoria, almost ten years ago, for a great event where Kenny, Sunny and I caricatured a long and extremely patient queue. 🙂 One of the best memories of my life!

How I make comics

The Comics Making Process…and if you want to see me in comics-making action (perhaps excluding the sad punching and lighting stuff on fire), I’ll be working on a couple of projects at the Zine Lounge tomorrow (Saturday 8 March) at Old Parliament House, downstairs. Went to visit the set up space today, it seems quite cosy. There’ll also be materials there for visitors to make your own zines.